Having your music described as somber and melancholy may not sound like a formula for a successful musical career, but it has worked for Canadien Leif Vollebekk. As a teen in Ottawa, Vollebekk found the music of Dylan, Neil Young and Lou Reed while also developing an appreciation for the beat generation writers Allen Ginsburg and Charles Bukowski. His musical interest was focused on composition until Dylan’s Simple Twist of Fate turned him towards lyrics.
Vollebekk moved to Iceland for a while to pursue his Nordic roots and worked on his music in the unique environment Iceland’s culture provides. After getting a sound he liked, Vollebekk returned to Canada and settled in Montreal, where he produced his first record Inland. The album drew from Vollebekk’s Iceland experiences.
Leif Vollebekk toured for two years prior to starting work on a second record. North Americana. The record took two years to produce, involving recording sessions in Montreal, New York, and France. His recording technique drew critical praise for its dependence on recording live to tape.
A third album in 2016 received a nomination for Canada’s Polaris Prize. Vollebekk described the writing of the songs on Twin Solitude as driven by the lessons he learned from singing other people’s songs being that none of those other artists seemed worried about anything except laying down their own souls, flat out. “I used to think, ‘This will be kinda like a Neil Young song,’ ‘This will be kinda like a Bob Dylan song,’” he recalled. “I kinda ran out of people to imitate. And then there was just me.”
